Gallery
Latest Member Photos
Many of our members are accomplished astrophotographers, and a few are award winning! If you’d like to use a photo for news media or other purposes, please ask as copyright often applies. Email photos@sas.org.au if there is a photo you’d like to use, and remember to credit the photographer.
Here is a test for a colour camera I can’t afford but got to have a play with. Being a colour camera I was able to shoot this core region of the M8 Lagoon nebula without any filters. 21 x 180s with QHY268C-Professional which has a 26MP resolution.. after drizzle this image was massive. Taken with Celestron 11” Edge HD and 0.7x reducer. Camera hands on and behind the scenes on this image on my YouTube. #astrophotography #qhyccd #qhy268c
"MERMAID WATERS" - M8 Nebula Detail - I was doing some test shots under the nearly full moon so didn't expect this to look like much but I can't stop looking at it. The detail is from the wider M8 Lagoon nebula but I focussed in with my big telescope (C11) on the little mermaid feature which is surrounded by at least a dozen bok globules I've never seen before. Normally I'd shoot the lagoon quite wide because the whole area is quite stunning but the dark dust clouds, blue reflection nebula, spires, globules, and cascading tiered emission clouds are all really quite spectacular to see all together. It almost looks like a Japanese painting.
Celestron 11" Edge HD
0.7 X reducer (F7)
22 x 180s / ZWO 1600mm
Colour data from 2019 (QHY12 CCD) #astrophotography #celestronrocks #photographingspace #universetoday #byronbay #nsw #mermaid #mermaidwaters #lagoon
Well it ain't much anymore but Comet Neowise made his way to Australia. No telescope or tracking. Pictured here over Ocean Shores, NSW. Taken from the lighthouse cafe in Byron Bay. 4 x 10s / ISO 3200 / F5.6 / 91mm w/ Canon 6D mk II on a regular tripod. This is comet #6 for my stamp collection of bright comets! (inc McNaught, Lovejoy, Linear, Panstars, Swann) #canonaustralia #byronbay #oceanshores
As I sat on the beach yesterday looking at the clear blue skies and terrible surf I thought “that’s good seeing - finally!” .. Jupiter just past opposition but moon Io went odd-shaped in post despite its shadow being perfectly round. Still ok results with C11 telescope! You can tell Jupiter is near opposition because it’s so large relatively but also because io’s shadow is so close to it. #celestronrocks #astrophotography #planets #youresa #universetoday #byronbay #jupiter #saturn #starstuff
Feels good to be back shooting nebulae again! M20 is a stunningly dual colour region captured here with separate R, G and B runs and broadband luminance. If you aren’t sure what that means, basically I’m shooting with a black and white camera (ZWO 1600mm) but instead of narrowband filters with small bandpasses for chemical signatures, I’m using broadly open filters across the spectrum so the result is a more natural, more realistic representation of the objects natural colour palette. I have increased the saturation of the colours to make it bolder however.
Still working on taming this new setup (Celestron c11 Edge HD / 0.7x reducer / CGX) to get the most of our it but this is a good hint at what it’s capable of. Some star bloat and skew and internal reflections from the ZWO glass on the bright stars which is a problem.
Red : 12 x 3m
Green : 15 x 3m
Blue : 11 x 3m
Broadband : 37 x 3m
Total Integration Time : 2.25 hours over 2 nights. #celestronrocks #astrophotography #cosmicisolation #universetoday #youresa #bintelastronomy #byronbay #nsw #space #nebula
A closer look last night at Centaurus A the weird and mysterious radio galaxy using the Celestron 11” Edge HD with 0.7x reducer / Zwo1600mm for broadband (unfiltered) exposures totalling 66 minutes and the colour data from the rasa11 and QHY247C camera 🙂 Behind the scenes video on my YouTube but mostly community drama and less about actually taking this image this time. #astrophotography #celestronrocks #qhyccd #universetoday #nexdome #photographingspace #bintelastronomy
Wanna see my Pillar of Creation? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Here’s my take this year on the Hubble classic. 2.8hours total integration with my Celestron 11” Edge HD and narrowband filters for SHO treatment. Painful behind the scenes video now on YouTube. 🙂 #astrophotography #celestronrocks #hubble #universetoday #photographingspace
View from my spaceship. Stay tuned for more exciting views from beyond the clouds and/or solar system. Eventually.
How to prove the Earth is round in mere seconds using a Celestron 660mm telescope and a phone camera! Flat Earthers will say it’s edited to justify the cognitive dissonance this assails them with! 😂 ... Or many other theories to explain multiple examples of big boats before or beyond the horizon! Leave your best flat Earth defences in the comments if your IQ is below 90. #flatearth #no
With the Byron Bay lighthouse effectively "off" it's much darker out on the cape. Tonight I watched the core rising through a lightning storm offshore which made the whole scene quite dynamic. 1 x 20s / ISO 2500 / f3.2 Canon 6D Mk II / Tokina 16-18mm @ 16mm #canonaustralia #byronbay #visitnsw #nsw #canon #milkyway #astrophotography
Full moon vibes tonight! Here’s a colour HDR composite of tonight’s moon with the light from 3 nights prior. C11” Edge HD and Canon 6d mk II / 2 exposures. More art than science due to merging. #astrophotography #celestronrocks #moon #hdr #fullmoon
Tonight is exactly 1 year since 18 year old backpacker Theo Hayez went missing in Byron Bay, NSW Australia. He was last seen leaving a bar on the main street, but his phone was traced to the area near the lighthouse. I met some of his family tonight as I went to take this photo and observe the same sky he saw that night a year ago. Unlike tonight, there was no Moon out. It would have been dark apart from the beams from the lighthouse, and Jupiter directly overhead, in the middle of a spectacular view of the Milky Way.
The Cape Byron Lighthouse is now undergoing maintenance involving the light's mercury which only happens once every 25 years. This means the light is actually off for a while, which will allow you to see the stars properly, which I fully recommend you do. You won't be disappointed.
Thanks to all the volunteers who helped during the search and my heart goes out to his family. ❤️🌌 #astrophotography #theohayez #starstuff #byronbay #lighthouse
How about I take a photo on something cheap for casual Friday? @celestronuniverse StarSense DX 102, NexYZ and iPhone ... Now where’s my beer? 🍺
I shot a galaxy out of the sky with a 2800mm telescope! Sombrero Galaxy M104 looks like a hat.. or a UFO... or an unwrapped condom depending on your psychological biography but although this image is subpar I really like how big the galaxy and dust lanes are. 11 min behind the scenes video about how badly I cheated on this image on my YouTube.com/erfmufn 38x30s exposures with zwo1600mm and Celestron 11” Edge HD. Used old colour data from a previous years shoot. #celestronrocks #celestron #astrophotography #byronbay #starstuff #sombrero #m104
This image is a little unexpected. I had a small window this evening before the moon rose after 8pm and started shooting around 6:30pm with the “wrong” telescope and the QHY-247C colour camera. I knew it would be super wide and not very detailed with this focal length, but shot it anyway. After drizzle, stack and a severe crop it’s still pretty wide but I can also see a lot of the background clouds in the area that I’ve never seen in other shots of this weird galaxy (Centaurus A) before. Plenty of small galaxies pepper the field as well as undulating light and dark patches which I’d normally be tempted to darken away but it looks quite interesting I think! I assume the dark patch is real because it’s not in my last image with the same unchanged setup, but can’t find another reference image stretched this way. Anyway, just a little surprised to get an image of decent quality so quickly. 75 minutes of total integration in 60 second exposures with the Celestron RASA 11″ #nofilter. #astrophotography #celestronrocks #qhyccd #qhy #truecolour #centaurusa #galaxy #starstuff
And just like that - we have a comet in the sky! Comet SWAN Not quite naked eye yet but easy to catch with a DSLR and any lens. Taken here from the edge of Australia over east in 8 second exposures at ISO6400 with a 105mm lens. Canon 6D Mk II - will be really interesting to see what this looks like in a week! Only Southern Hemisphere right now but coming your way Northerners. #astrophotography #comet #canonaustralia #byronbay #swan
Hi, Dylan O’Donnell, professional computer wallpaper creator here. I’m releasing this years portrait of the Great Carina Nebula in super wide, 8k high resolution! 2 panel mosaic of Carina’s intense core with it’s emission nebula stretching all the way to the edges. Shot in true-colour using the QHY247C one shot colour camera, Celestron 11″ RASA and ZWO 1600MM for Ha luminance.
42 x 60x Ha / ZWO1600MM
33 x 60s Ha / ZWO1600MM
50 x 60s RGB / QHY247C
60 x 60s RGB / QHY247C
Total Integration : 3.08 hours.
Copyright free, watermark free and public domain : http://deography.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/8k-Carina.jpg #celestronrocks #qhyccd #carina #astrophotography #celestron #byronbay #cosmicisolation #8k #freespace #bintelastronomy
I’m honestly a little surprised at how well this turned out. Leo’s Triplet (M66) captured only with a one-shot-colour camera, the QHY247C and the Celestron RASA 11″ over 80 minutes. Of course this galactic neighbourhood contains far more than 3 galaxies and is a part of a cluster filled with nearby fuzzy blobs. By running the image through PixInsights image solver and annotation tool you can reveal these explicitly. 40x120s true colour ! #astrophotography #astronomy #starstuff #byronbay #visitnsw #universetoday #youresa #celestronrocks #qhyccd
Star forming region NGC 3576 does look a bit like the Statue of Liberty is soaked in bleach and flipping us the bird if you look closely. This years attempt is a vast improvement on previous tries and the current avalanche of these natural colour images is due in part to the improvements to the Nex Dome observatory here thanks to Sidereal Trading but also the recent acquisition of a QHYCCD 247C One Shot Colour camera which is the best performing colour camera I’ve had to date.
Taken with Celestron 11″ RASA
34 x 120s Hydrogen Alpha w/ ZWO1600 MM
91 x 30s Colour w/ QHY 274C
Provided free as high resolution 4096 x 5418 3MB JPG (The web will likely not show you this image at full resolution so hit this if you’re interested – http://deography.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/HA-RGB-Liberty-4096-3mb-scaled.jpg ) #astrophotography #universetoday #byronbay #disinfectant #putlightinthebody #youregoingtotestthatright #soakedinbleach #amityaffliction #statueofliberty #ladyliberty #givemefreedomorgivemecovid19
Globular Clusters like this, the biggest one in the Milky Way, hang around galaxies in nice spheres and WE DON’T REALLY KNOW HOW. Are they failed galaxies? Do they have a black hole? How do they even? I’ve shot Omega Centauri here in true colour and provided the image in greater than 4k resolution so you can zoom in and try and work it out for yourself. You’ll see mostly old stars (orange), but young ones (blue) also and if you look close enough you may even find a few distant galaxies photobombing this image.
Taken with the Celestron RASA 11″ and QHY247C One Shot Colour camera, 61 x 15 seconds for only 15 minutes total integration. A quick and easy target for most astrophotographers in the Southern Hemisphere but maddeningly difficult to capture and process well. #astrophotography #celestron #qhyccd #byronbay #omegacentauri #universetoday #spacemaddness
Historical Photos
SAS Monthly Meeting 
~ International Observe the Moon Night 2019 ~ 
